Creating the Crisis

Here’s another reader letter whose response was long and complex enough to warrant an entire column. And though I’ve answered the main question here on several occasions, every new look at it may succeed in “turning on the light” for different people.

I understand about moral panics and poorly supported statistics. On the other hand, the experience of policewoman Kathryn Bolkovac in Bosnia would indicate that there is a serious problem of trafficking and coercion, at least in certain countries and under certain circumstances. Have you read her book or seen the movie based on her experiences in Bosnia? Abusive and coercive working conditions tantamount to slavery are actually quite common in the world; should we be concerned about forced prostitution, or is it your opinion that this is so uncommon as to not be a problem?

I’m not familiar with Bolkovac, but I must point out several things: first, that she is a cop. As you know, cops have a tendency to exaggerate, especially when the subject is criminal behavior; their world-view demands a belief in the concept that crime is rampant and that something must be “done about” it, and that the solution always involves more cops and more punitive measures. Even an unusually skeptical cop is laboring under a heavy burden of presupposition and experience viewed through a skewed “law and order” filter; take a look at the stories of the LEAP members Radley Balko has guest blogging on The Agitator right now and you’ll see what I mean. These are clearly not stupid men, but they were so indoctrinated into the “drug war” philosophy that it took them years of considerable negative input to break out of it; it’s not exactly a stretch to suggest that Bolkovac has a similar handicap.

Next, abusive and/or coercive working conditions, though common as you point out, cannot be battled by criminalizing employers or denying the agency of those who choose to work under those conditions; consider the controversy over Foxconn. Horrific work conditions in the 19th century did not end because governments criminalized employers or “rescued” workers from exploitative factories, but because those workers organized themselves to demand better conditions and governments eventually backed up those demands. As long as sex work is illegal, there will be exploitation in it because the workers are unable to organize for change; essentially, the government acts as an enforcer for the exploiters. In every place where prostitution is decriminalized, coercion and exploitation virtually vanish; tellingly, the only exploitation which remains in legalized systems (such as those in Queensland or Nevada) tends to revolve around those sectors which are illegal (unlicensed, etc) or limited by regulations (such as the number of brothel windows allowed in Amsterdam). In other words, evil people (including corrupt cops and bureaucrats) will immediately move to take advantage of any artificial bottleneck which allows only some people to do sex work while excluding others.

Third, the existence of coercion in sex work no more proves claims of vast “human trafficking” networks or justifies “trafficking” hysteria than the existence of child sexual abuse proves claims of Satanic cults or justifies “child predator” panic. Furthermore, situations which arise in areas embroiled in or just emerging from chaos (such as late-’90s Bosnia) are no more representative of the rest of the world than the social or economic conditions of such places are. The overwhelming evidence is that only a small fraction (<2% of adults, <10% of minors) of sex workers are coerced in any concrete sense, and that the majority of such coercion is perpetrated by individuals or small groups (gangs, etc) rather than by international cartels or even large criminal enterprises.

Finally (and this brings us back to Bolkovac), though many people (especially cops and moralists) insist on viewing the world as a Manichean struggle between the forces of good (equated with order) and the forces of evil (equated with disorder, i.e. free action), this clearly does not make it so. Human behavior is complex and there are few clear “heroes” and “villains”, few pure “victims” and “victimizers”. One of the processes which laid the groundwork for “trafficking” hysteria was the criminalization of interpersonal antagonism in the 1980s and 1990s. While it’s certainly true that some relationships are unilaterally abusive, it is also true that the majority of what is now termed “domestic violence” in adult relationships is the result of a complex two-way interaction rather than a simplistic TV cop-show abuser-victim dynamic such as many feminists pretend to be the norm. Those who believe in this kindergarten conceptualization of human interaction cannot help but be confused when women (or men, for that matter) stay in abusive relationships; they attempt to explain the reluctance to break up (or even to blame the abusive partner) on “brainwashing” or fear (of physical violence) or whatever, when in fact the relationship may fill a real (though unhealthy) need in the “victim”. If a woman is forced out of an abusive relationship by ham-fisted state action (such as mandatory domestic violence prosecution) or some other paternalistic intervention without examination of the underlying reasons she accepted such a relationship in the first place, she is likely to seek out another, similar one to replace it. Furthermore, when abusive relationships are interpreted through a rigid neofeminist “male aggression and patriarchal dominance” filter, abusive male homosexual relationships and those in which a woman abuses her partner of either sex must be disregarded or even denied because they disprove the cherished model.

The enshrinement of the “male aggressor-female victim” model in both mainstream feminism and Western legalism made both the “Swedish model” and “sex trafficking” mythology inevitable. Since moralistic Westerners (especially Americans) and radical feminists both view sex as a dirty, awful thing, any form of it which is not sanitized by whatever rituals the particular group demands (marriage, absolute female choice without any practical consideration whatsoever, exclusion of men from the interaction, etc) is interpreted as “violence” and “abuse” inflicted by evil, powerful men on innocent, passive, childlike women. Prostitution thus becomes a form of rape and exploitation, something it is impossible for women to choose unless they are under some form of duress. The existence of victimization necessitates a victimizer, hence the “trafficking” myth which insists that each and every whore is the victim of a man or men who “forced” her into a life of degradation, torture and dirty, filthy, awful sex. This narrative spawns “end demand” programs which cast customers (properly understood as equal partners in a simple economic transaction) as sinister quasi-rapists, and inspires police to capture hookers in order to pressure them into producing “pimps” who probably (93% for adults, 90% for underage) don’t even exist. The rise of “anti-trafficking” initiatives have therefore created perverse incentives for women to invent these pimps; if they’re “trafficking victims” they escape prosecution and may even get some other goodies, whereas if they’re prostitutes by choice or circumstance they go to jail. Naturally, the number of reported “pimps” and “traffickers” rises, and the police and fanatics can claim that “sex trafficking” is a “growing problem” whether the supposed “pimp” is a real person, a relatively-innocent man fingered by a desperate streetwalker, or a wholly imaginary character.

In the absence of criminalization, negative factors in sex work (such as exploitation, coercion and other unbalanced interactions) are no more or less common than they are in other human personal and professional interactions. The world is not fair and people are imperfect, so there will always be bad relationships and crappy work environments. The best we can hope for is the removal of unnecessary and artificial obstacles which prevent people from demanding fair treatment from the other participants in those relationships, or leaving those situations if the other parties refuse to change.

Ok…………this is off topic, but as an avid bicyclist for 40 years i had to share this. (found it in a bicycling history book i was reading) from the ” Womens rescue league” http://www.worldwideschool.org ” the bicycle bacillus”

THAT was truly classic. Now, when I point out that people have ALWAYS been worried that some new technology is corrupting morals, I can add to the list “bicycles cause prostitution.” And I would never have guessed it on my own.

That first link is also interesting, and includes (amongst other things) recipes for such as peanut butter fudge. So it was hardly in vain to post it.

“the majority of such coercion is perpetrated by individuals or small groups (gangs, etc) rather than by international cartels or even large criminal enterprises”

Had a mate who owned a legal brothel one. He sold it, and told me that it’s just the wost business in the world from a businessperson’s point of view. One of the few businesses where you cant rely on your staff showing up for work.

The very idea of “trafficking” of women, when drugs are so much more transportable, profitable, and don’t start bitch fights with one another out of boredom is ridiculous. Oh – and also considering that you can find women suitable for the work pretty much anywhere. Why would you go to the bother of importing them? It’s just impractical as a business proposition. Pimping doesn’t scale beyond one man and his personal stable.

Why would you import them? Cheap labor (it’s a little hard to use “maquiladoras” for a service that has to be performed in person).

In Europe this leads to even more misuse of the notion of trafficking. Many sex workers in places like Holland and Germany are indeed “trafficked” in the meaning that they’ve sneaked across a border from poorer countries, possibly with help, to find work. That’s not the same thing as being victims.

Having said that, we do have in Oz women being trafficked from asia. Unable to understand the language, they are pretty much at the mercy of their traffickers. They are held in debt slavery.
Not sure how big the problem is, though. And as always, legalisation (and regulation) fixes it. Most men would far, far rather see a sex worker without the risk of being imprisoned.

“Horrific work conditions in the 19th century did not end because governments criminalized employers or “rescued” workers from exploitative factories, but because those workers organized themselves to demand better conditions and governments eventually backed up those demands.”

Better working conditions came about due to increased industrialization and worker productivity. Much of progressive-era public policy implementations and push for greater unionization was a less than subtle tactic to make minorities and immigrants non-competitive in the labor market.

“Increased…worker productivity.” You’re presuming that because you can earn your employer more money, he’ll give you a raise and make your workplace safer, without you needing to organize? *buzzer* I’m sorry, but that answer is _not_ correct. As for your implication that the unions were formed merely to pander to anti-minority, anti-immigrant prejudices — maybe it’s because there’s no point in demanding a decent wage so long as the company can just fire you and hire someone who will work cheap.

Well, they don’t write it about much, but rmv is on to something with his comment. We always hear about the “ebil corporations” at the turn of the LAST century … ipso facto … “therefore the corporations of the 21st century are just as evil”.

Look around, we’re in the middle of a “information revolution” – see how chaotic things are? See what a hard time people are having figuring out what the “boundaries” are or what’s “acceptable” and not? This kind of thing happens in any “revolution” – people get confused, some make good decisions – some make bad ones. It was the same for the industrial revolution and people forget this.

People also forget that we experienced a depression in 1893, which forced a lot of women into the workforce that MEN didn’t want to compete with. There was also an EXPLOSION of immigration happening – immigrants that American workers didn’t like competing with. Top it off with the fact that, in America, we were industrializing at the speed of light after the Civil War and the demands for more and cheaper goods for infrastructure did not cease. So at least some of the stimulus for “organizing” was based on racism and sexism – there’s no questioning that. The first union guys didn’t want to compete with the Irish … didn’t want to compete with Blacks … didn’t want to compete with women.

What would happen if all the workers went on strike at a factory? What would that mean for other jobs down the line? What kind of example does that set for the rest of American workers? Will the U.S. economy FAIL if all Americans refuse to work or we have all kinds of chaotic strikes going on simultaneously?

No one knew the answer to those questions. We know NOW – because we’ve got hundred years experience with organized industrial labor – but those people didn’t know then. They had to work the boundaries out – in fact, I submit the pendulum has “swung” in favor of organized labor a bit too much – and so we’ll continue to “work things out”.

1. A simple google search brings up a passel of economic papers that detail the relationship between labor productivity and total compensation(wages, fringe benefits, whathaveyou). One example: http://www.thebhc.org/publications/BEHprint/v011/p0162-p0170.pdf
Plenty of modern examples of countries that rapidly industrialized and saw an attendant massive growth in total compensation, the Asian Tigers and Chile are some that immediately come to mind.

2. Not merely, but a major reason. The biggest reason, I would say, is the same for any other attempts to cartelize, rent-seeking.
You do not seem to be arguing the connection, and you seem to agree with the basic nativist (economically-illiterate) argument.

By the way … anyone been watching these NFL pre-season games? I don’t care for NFL … but I live in a town that’s NUTS about the Saints so my family always turns on the games.

Apparently – I’M TOLD – the regular “professional” NFL referees are “LOCKED OUT” – which I equate to being on strike. So they have replaced those guys on the field with other refs – at least one of which came from the Lingerie League which made me giggle, but I digress…

Why is it – that the NFL PLAYERS aren’t also on “strike”?? What kind of “brotherly” solidarity is that? Abandoning their brothers in the referee union! See, when the NFL players go on strike – basically NO ONE works … not the refs, not the dude selling hot dogs …

So what gives here – can’t these “millionaires” spare a few mil to show support for their brothers in the ref union?? Hmmmmm?

Because Henry Ford invented the $5/day wage in response to union pressure, right? Oh, wait, no, there weren’t any unions in the auto industry in 1914; it was 20 years before the Nation Labor Relations Act and the UAW. The problem was that workers kept quitting after a little while, and despite being “unskilled” labor, it was cheaper to double wages and reduce hours than training new people every few months.

When productivity goes up, the value of labor goes up. If an employer doesn’t give its employees a cut of that, some other employer will, and they’ll switch jobs. The cheap employer will wind up employing only low-productivity dregs, or have to raise its wages to compete. The “Iron Law of Wages” is a particularly stupid fantasy of Karl Marx.

No, Ford’s real idea, if you read any of his biographers, is that if he raised the wage to $5 per day he would 1) get to pick and choose the best workers, 2) his workers would be able to afford his Model T. There was nothing about losing workers, it was picking and choosing the best workers.

Being able to pick the best workers and being able to retain workers who know what they are doing are infinitesimally differentiated aspects of the same thing. The point is, it didn’t require any organization on the part of labor to get the improved wages and hours in 1914; it was made possible by worker productivity, and then was bid up by competition between employers,

But it’s well documented in actual business histories and case studies (as opposed to popular biographies) that Ford Motor Co. was suffering as high as 300% annual turnover in some departments in 1913. It’s similarly well documented that doubling the daily wage and reducing hours from nine to eight drastically reduced that turnover.

(And #2 is just pure economic illiteracy on the part of popular biographers. You can’t make money raising the wages of your workers so they can afford to buy your products, any more than you can make money by buying your own products with your own money directly. The closest thing to an actual such effect is, “raising the wages I pay can make other employers raise theirs in the competition for labor with me, and then others with them in the same competition, and down the line. Which means workers of other employers will be able to afford my products, and since the rest of the economy employs more people than I do, I can make up from sales to their workers more money than I lose in raising salaries for mine.”)

And which studies and business histories are those: name them please. Because all of the serious (not popular) biographers, as well as the Michigan Supreme Court case of Ford v. Dodge argue against you.

I’m sorry, what part of Ford v. Dodge contradicts the claim that Ford was seeing 300% turnover in some departments in 1913, and saw substantially less turnover thereafter?

Or, alternatively, are you claiming that the Ford statement for press consumption that “My ambition is to employ still more men, to spread the benefits of this industrial system to the greatest possible number, to help them build up their lives and their homes”, used by those suing Ford in that case, is somehow equivalent to Ford saying and actually meaning he raised wages so he could sell his cars to his employees?

“Increased…worker productivity.” You’re presuming that because you can earn your employer more money, he’ll give you a raise and make your workplace safer, without you needing to organize?

Essentially, yes — provided that it’s feasible for new companies to outcompete your employer. Overregulate away this possibility, and you get the situation we have now, where it is no longer viable to employ people in the US.

Yes, some union members were racists, and some of the unions worked to pass laws that were racists. But there were plenty of minorities in labor unions.

Improvements in working conditions came because workers were more productive and thus could demand higher wages.

The key is “demand”, they had more power because they both were better than just hiring another guy off the street and because they organized themselves.
It doesn’t just happen, anymore than a company makes money by supplying a product that nobody is demanding.

The main reason for cartels of any kind is economic rent. The methods of obtaining those rents differ. In the case of most unions during this time period, the methods involved racist and anti-immigrant rhetoric. Nowadays, the rhetoric is less racial, but more focused encouraging an anti-foreign bias.

Application of physical and, yes, human capital to labor is one reason why productivity increased. Unions did not develop the physical nor the human capital. They took existing industrial structures and tried to carve out for themselves a permanent place from which to control the in-flow of labor into the market.

There was a certain amount of racism in unions of that time but no different from any part of society at that time. The constitution was a very sexist and racist document. And anti-foreign bias is a pretty big part of most modern institutions too.

And unions did not develop the human capital, BECAUSE THE HUMAN CAPITAL DEVELOPED THE UNIONS.
And they did what you just said to get the better working conditions and wages.

1. Yes, and cultivating and encouraging racist, anti-immigrant, and anti-foreign biases so as to inflame enough passions to pass legislation to protect one’s own interests over others’ is rent-seeking. Many unionists in this time period did not want to be supplanted by the newly arriving/emancipated Irish, Italians, Chinese, Blacks, etc. Instead of competing in the market, they appeal to the government. Result? Chinese Exclusion Act, certain aspects of Jim Crow, the minimum wage, and on and on.

2. Human capital does not develop anything. Human capital is the accumulated skills, education, and attributes that allow individuals to increase their productivity. Earning greater compensation due to higher productivity is a great thing. Earning greater compensation due to rent-seeking is not.

How does one go about “brainwashing” someone? I have to confess, I’m not smart enough to figure that one out even though it appears that many red necks who make 1/4 of the money I do have figured it out.

I really feel stupid. I wouldn’t even know where to begin in order to brainwash anyone. 😦

It’s never happened, is physically impossible and was based on a misconception of Chinese interrogation techniques used in the Korea War.
Oh, and “Stockholm Syndrome” doesn’t really exist either, check out the Norrmalmstorg robbery that coined the term. The cops just bumbled things up so much that hostages were more frighten of them than the hostage taker.

I disagree. It could only be “brainwashing” if a perfectly healthy woman got somehow tricked by an evil genius into such a relationship and then slowly worn down, but that isn’t what happens in 95% of the cases; in every abusive relationship I’ve ever seen, including the two I was in, both parties had some sick need that the relationship fed into. And very often, the physically abused party emotionally abuses the physical abuser right back. Human relationships aren’t Lifetime dramas; they’re complicated dances in which, as the song said, “There ain’t no good guy/There ain’t no bad guy.”

OK, then. When a woman is beat up so badly she needs reconstructive surgery on her face, I can rest easy knowing she brought at least some of this shit on herself. No need to press charges against man whatsoever, since it’s all a complicated dance where there ain’t no good guy or bad guy.

Sarcasm off.

I will admit that most times state-involvement can make it worse, we can’t turn our backs on behavior where, if it’s done on a stranger, it is rightly seen as criminal activity. And the method of brainwashing I’m referring to is called “emotional manipulation”, which is the most effective kind because the victim doesn’t realize it’s happening. The victim interprets it as “love”.

And if she refuses to press charges, what then? Should he be arrested against her will? What if they were doing it in a ritualized way with costumes as part of a BDSM sex act? Does the state have the right to intervene then? What if she just chooses to go places and do things in which she gets beaten up frequently? Can the state stop her for “her own good”?

But again, who’s to determine what is “real”? I am against the state abrogating the right of any sane adult to make his or her own decisions. If the victim of a crime refuses to press charges, that’s where it needs to stop. Period. End of line. No matter how much it pisses everyone else off. Or else you get the kind of abominations which are now all too common in our court system.

I read a book on abusive relationships used in psychology courses once… the theory in the book was that the woman has Borderline Personality Disorder and the man has Narcissistic Personality Disorder and those two personality disorder intermesh and can become abusive. The BPD partner’s personhood becomes completely intermeshed in the NPD partner’s identity and she basically has no identity without the partner and that is why she has such a hard time leaving. Also, BPD women tend to seek out partners with NPD because they have such a strong personality that she finds the “missing part” of her personality.

Usually, psychotherapy was required for someone with BPD to leave the relationship and finally start to form healthy relationships.

I can’t remember the name of the book (I think it was was The Abused Woman)… I’ll have to look for it later.

I’d like to know how this brainwashing works. Is it done by remote control? Are there little earworms that drain the willpower out of people?
If we’re just talking about the slow diminution of personal identity that happens to many people in relationships through abuse, emotional or otherwise, then women are as guitly of this as men, at least. That kind of relatoinship hebavior is standard for many relationships, and is dished out by women as well as men. Constant put-downs, attacks on the ego, denial of desires, shaming, insulting: Women do this at least as much as men.

That you can’t blame on “traffickers” or Bad Evil Men. That’s just a staple of human life. Eliminating that requires taking away most people’s free will to make good and bad choices in order to save human free will.
And most of the relationships that are structured this way are fluid, and almost always, both partners engage in this behavior.

If you’re talking about something special that targets only women, then I need you to clarify what super-duper magic mojo is used. Is it some chemical in male sweat? Mind control? Because, as mocking and as absurd as it sounds, if you’re going to deny the free agency of “brainwashed women”, then you need to start explaining what evil mechanism of mind control is at work here.

I’m not being flippant. What you’re suggesting borders on conspiracy theory. In order for your comments to be a justifiable position for public policy, that “conspiracy theory” needs to be spelled out and justified in extreme detail.

It’s too easy to believe things just because they “seem” reasonable based on your own assumtions and presuppositions. Often, the underlying assumptions turn out to be wrong.

This is the case, for example, with domestic violence. While a tiny percentage of men are genuinely scary, the vast majority of DV cases involve incredibly complex relationships in which there’s no simple victim.

My mother and her sister have different accounts of the physical violence that their father used on their mother. My mother was younger, and when their parents divorced, was too young to know what was really going on.

My mother hated her father.
My aunt had ambivalent feelings about her mother, and remained in close contact with her father; she never blamed him.

Here’s why, and here’s why a “one shoe fits all” diagnosis of villains and victims just doesn’t work well in explaining most circumstances, and why “brainwashing” just doesn’t wash, generally.

My grandmother was famous for being abused by her husband. It later emerged, after I had imbibed the “victim” mentality, that she had not been the “innocent victim of the evil drunk” we grandkids thought she had been.

My aunt explaint it to me:

– My grandmother was a very vindictive person. She liked to stake out the moral high ground and berate everyone around her. She was especially brutal with her husband.
– He didn’t drink much at first. However, she more or less used him as a work-horse for the first twenty years of their marriage; he was rarely praised, oftne insulted, berated, and any ego he had was thoroughly beaten down, more or less by her.
– Anyone else who knew him loved him. He was, at heart, claimed more or less everyone, a hopelessly gentle soul.
– About fifteen years into their relationship, her screaming and badgering became almost intolerable. My older aunt noticed it: Her mother was genuinely nasty and vindictive. She said that her mother used to deliberately push her husband until he finally exploded.
– Her behavior became increasingly irrational and agitated and verbally abusive, until in an act of desperation, he would hit his wife, and then would crawl off, ashamed and hurt, and then…
-His wife would beg him to come back.

Until she didn’t.

I’m not saying that it was all her fault. Obviously, he hit his wife. But my aunt was very explicit: He only ever did this when the screaming and yelling and insulting had gone on for, literally, hours. Sometimes, he would be able to go three or four days without reacting to her attempts to get him to act out.

This is the diagnosis my aunt came to.

Her thoughts were; My grandmother loved drama. She was angry at many things in life, not least of which was that they didn’t have a lot of money (6 kids will do that).
– She was prone to take out her anger on those around her.
– She held her husband responsible for her happiness. If she wasn’t happy, it was her husband’s fault.
– My grandfather was relatively mild-mannered, and indulgent of his wife in most things. The problem is, my grandmother took this for weakness, and mercilessly rode him until he responded.
– When he responded, she was angry and sought out support for being a victim of a bad man. She then had the moral high ground:
And she had MORE POWER over her husband and the relationship as a result.

She also was attracted to powerful men and strength; this was her way of forcing her husband to act “like a man”. A very, very large number of women expect this from men, and while violence is not a preferred way to achieve this impressoin, it’s certainly one of them.

– The drama centered attention on her. She was The Victim, and could then use this in her control of her children, or others.

Don’t underestimate the ability of a “weak woman” to manipulate those around her. I have this to say: I loved my grandmother, but one thing she was not, was weak.

Eventually, they divorced. She pushed him too far, he hit her, stormed out, and when she threatened divorce (again), …

He accepted.

She took everything: House, kids, alimony, everything. He lived like a pauper for the next 40 years. He wasn’t allowed to see his kids, and only a few sought him out after they were adults.

My aunt says he never blamed his ex wife, never called her a bitch, always apologized for not being there, and regretted how it had turned out, and his actions.
My grandmother was bitter in the extreme.

Personally: I know that weak men are treated with contempt by women, and wives generally detest and loathe their husbands if they detect weakness in them. In my grandmother’s case, this was exacerabted by her own very strong, tough-minded will.

My aunt says her father was no saint, but neither was he some abusive, terrifying monster. In fact, she says he was basically good-natured, but that her mother was a complex person with very contradictory drives. Her mother was no pure victim, either: In many cases, she worked extremely hard to provoke her husband, often not relenting until he was literally browbeaten and had to act – do something, anything – to defend himself. And they got into this pattern, where he learned to fear her, and she learned how to get the upper hand. Ironically, this was abusive, but in some ways gave her social power or justification she didn’t otherwise have. She could then oblige her (older) children to do things that they wouldn’t have otherwise, as well as getting a great deal of sympathy from relatives and friends – and completely undermining her husband and gaining more power in the relationship.

Of course, he was acting out to preserve his own space and power, too: she was not the “demon” or “devil”. The point is, their social strategies were just that: Social patterns as strategies. They ended up causing a lot of grief for both of them.

So where was the brainwashing that brought my grandmother back to my grandfather so many times? What was it?

Both men and women have incredibly complex personalities. These simplistic models that the PC crowd promote deny this. They treat people as cardboard, Hollywood-style cutouts without nuance or layered motivations or emotional depth.

Either we give people agency, or we don’t. If we do, then people must be held accountable for their choices, but they must also be free to make them.

Unless you’re positing ooga-booga mystical powers to men which they use to control women, Maggie is bang-on. Respect women first and foremost by respecting their choices. Assist when necessary, but don’t be blinded by ideology. At least attempt to understand human psychology. Gender is not everything.

Either women are adults, or they’re not. I default to treating them as independent adults.

Most neofeminism today goes to great lengths to justify denying agency or independence to women.

[…] speak out for some time concerning this issue, especially given the rising hysteria over so-called trafficking. For a couple of years I have been trying to see how I could help reverse this terrible civil […]

One must remember: a single incident, no matter how horrific, is not proof. It is at best evidence, at worst an anecdote. As I pointed out, using police statistics, in my OpEdNews article “Making Sex a Crime,” the whole trafficking story has been overblown by law enforcement, religious zealots, and neo-feminists for fund raising and publicity purposes. It took me nearly a month to research that article, and I started with no axe to grind other than the statistics that the MSM were putting out did not add up.

She’s not “mistaken”; she’s flat-out wrong. There are two reasons she could be wrong; 1) she’s lying, or 2) she’s biased and thus misinterprets everything through a cops-and-robbers filter like over 90% of cops do.

That’s not “denying her agency”; that’s giving her the benefit of the doubt rather than calling her a sleazy liar out to make a buck at sex workers’ expense.

Kathryn was not making up stories about millions of people being smuggled into American city. She was talking about how in the aftermath of a conflict which did involve mass sexual enslavement, that a number of sex workers were coerced with the assistance of a number of cops.

And as far as I know she hasn’t actually bought into the whole “Moral Panic” thing when her book was published, probably now of course.

To do a postmortem on this argument, my mistake was posting a comment that was supposed to be viewed in the context of having just read the entire column. And that what she was actually saying was matched up rather well with what you seemed to think happened.

Giving her the benefit of the doubt would mean looking at the claims she was making, rather than smugly declaring that she must be indoctrinated.

And If I may help shed light on why sex trafficking hysteria is just a perverse problem. Sex trafficking is completely believable because it has happened before. The most famous example being Japanese comfort women which was a massive human trafficking ring.

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